Being willing to believe

Imagine being in a pitch black room. There is not a glimmer of light anywhere. In fact the room is so dark, you can’t even be sure that you’re in a room. Sure, from time to time you have felt your way around what feel like the perimeters of the space, and you think it’s a room, but you can’t really be sure. Friends and family tell you that you are in a very dark space but can’t offer a solution. The doctor has told you that for an hour at a time the space can be lit up artificially but she doubts this will happen more than five times. It is not a permanent solution.

You sit there in the dark, full of despair believing that you have been sentenced to a life time of sitting in this room, in the dark. And you know that your life will be short if you do. Then someone tells you that outside the room there is daylight. Naturally produced brilliant sunshine. For hours on end. Permanently. You have no way of knowing whether this is true or not. Then they say that just to your left, there is a door handle. If you open the door, light will come pouring into the room. But even better, you can leave the room and experience the light for numerous hours a day. You think they must be joking. After all, the doctors told you it isn’t possible. Friends and family have told you to listen to the doctor. No one in your family has ever seen the sunshine.

And so leaving the room, let alone brilliant sunshine, is only the stuff of dreams. But this little voice in your head, telling you that the handle could be within reach, is persistent. You decide that you are at such a low point, there is nothing to lose by out stretching your arm and seeing whether or not there really is a door handle. So in that moment of despair and utter hopelessness, despite all the prejudices and biases, you become willing to give it a try.

And what do you find? A door handle. It’s a little bit stiff and doesn’t turn on the first go. But the fact is you found a handle when others told you it didn’t exist, when even you said it just couldn’t be, and now that you know it is there, you have hope that on the other side is the promised sunshine, or at the very least, a way out. You keep trying to turn it. And keep trying.

And eventually it gives. The handle turns. There is a click and the door is loose. A slither of light enters the room. You take some time, adjusting your eyes. It’s true. Now you believe that there is sunshine outside this door. You still don’t know whether it’s permanent or not, but it doesn’t matter. It’s there! And that is all you need to know to have a belief that sunshine exists.

Isn’t everytime we try something new a little bit like this? I know from experience that developing faith in a higher power was a lot like this. Through simply being willing to believe, I was able to take actions – to reach out for the door handle – that gave me results that suggested that little bit more strongly that there was something to believe in. The more actions I took, the more I came to believe and eventually I was able to say that I even had faith. Have faith. Don’t ask what in. It’s very particular and peculiar to me, and fortunately it’s a lot bigger and a whole lot more powerful than me.

So, my healing journey is also a lot like this. Stepping outside the medical model hasn’t been easy. I know that certain of my friends and family would have preferred it if I had put myself completely in the hands of my doctors. But I was willing to believe that there was something more than what the doctors could offer. And now I’m taking actions that are entirely consistent with that willingness to believe. And the more I read stories of others who have done what I’m doing and have made incredible recoveries, my willingness to believe is transforming to an actual belief. If you haven’t read it yet, Dr Kelly Turner’s book, Radical Remission (click here to go to the Radical Remission Project and here to go to the series of posts I’ve written about it), is hot off the press and has pulled together the 9 things that people who have RECOVERED from advanced cancers, against the odds, did. And I’m doing them all. And I’m getting well. I really believe that.

But who would do any of these things, that take you not only out of mainstream medicine, but also as I’m discovering, outside mainstream society, unless you really believed in what you were doing? No one. A belief, or at least a willingness to believe, is essential.

So what am I leading up to? In the week before Easter I was privileged to attend a week long meditation retreat led by Ian and Ruth Gawler. It was an opportunity to eat wholesome vegan food and drink juices without having to prepare them and to sit to meditate for 4.5 hrs a day without other demands. The principal focus of Ian’s teachings and the few guided meditations was contemplation. We can use contemplation as a tool for setting goals or problem solving, for deeper understanding of ourselves and our situation and for seeking universal truths. Contemplation is also what I am studying at Rigpa this semester so it was beautifully aligned. And what a useful tool it is, provided of course I practise it.

The Labyrinth at the Gawler Foundation: another tool for contemplation.

However, I digress. The other benefit of the retreat, held at the Gawler Foundation, was the community of others who have stepped outside the mainstream and used nutrition and meditation for healing from advanced chronic disease. And they know stories of many others they have met along the way.

One story I heard particularly resonated for me. A former lawyer, in his sixties, after a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2003, was diganosed with follicular lymphoma in 2007. He declined conventional treatment in both instances and instead followed the Gawler recommendations. The ONLY thing he changed after the second diagnosis ie after he was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, was that he added in an extra liquid. He did this because a doctor told him she had heard that it works with follicular lymphoma, but no other cancer. And guess what? His tumours shrank. And seven years on, he’s still here to tell the tale. That says something doesn’t it?

So what was it that he drank? His urine. Yep! You read right. A warm glass of the first for the day wee!

He’s a bit like me and likes to share what he’s learned along his journey. So if you want to know more about urine therapy as a cure for follicular lymphoma, or even generally, it’s all in his free e-book that you can find here.

Something only has to be done once to show that it can be doneDr Ainslie Meares.

Now you can see why the issue of being willing to believe is on my mind. Of course, I have been willing to believe that all sorts of things can heal me. At the very least, none of the things I’ve tried in the last 12 months (having a break from work, an organic plant based diet, meditation, reiki, massage, yoga, juicing, shamanism, supplements, coffee enemas) have harmed me (except for the conventional treatment that has knocked my immune system around so badly that my lymphocytes haven’t recovered but it did help get rid of Sigourney so I’ll give it a little bit of credit, for now). There is never anything to lose if something can’t harm.

But am I desperate enough at the moment to be willing to give urine therapy a go? I’m willing to believe it could work. But I don’t yet have that gift of desperation or despair sufficient to reach out and try it. Who knows? The time may come. If there were any sign that tumours were taking form inside my form again, so to speak, then now I know that I have a plan B. If urine therapy has worked for someone else diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, then I am more than willing to believe that it can work, and should the need arise, it could even work for me. In the meantime, I can use it as a subject of contemplation.

6 comments on “Being willing to believe”

Well I have to admit Jane that as I was reading this I was hoping that it wasn’t culminating in you drinking your first glass of urine but having said that, if it gives you hope and it has helped your friend, then: Cheers! Salut! Bottoms up!

This is absolutely beautifully written. My dad was disgnosed with cancer last year and I read a lot of articles into naturopahty and cancer treatment. There are so many different opinions about cancer and treatment with naturopaths saying one thing, doctors saying another, and family saying another still. I think a lot of the time people have a tendency to just give up, but as your words and experience shows, the gift of desperation sometimes leads us down a different path, just so long as we are willing to believe the path is the right one. Inspiring stuff x

Thanks Tess. Yes, it’s a minefield without a doubt. One of the 9 things that is referred to in Radical Remission is to follow your intuition. And really that’s what I’ve been doing. Whenever I’ve had to make a treatment related decision, I’ve just sat with it in my meditation and allowed my intuition or higher self speak. It really helps to get clear. But not everyone has the tools to do that.
Be happy. Be well. Jane x

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